The true skill in implementing systems like Shepherd’s is the initial configuration where careful analysis of a client’s needs translates into making the system meet client requirements as well as possible, right out of the gate. It’s at this point that preferences are set. Sure, they can be revisited, but making the right requests at the beginning saves work further down the line.
This blog looks at two such configuration choices that are now available, and the reason for them. The first topic in this blog is one of those options clients can now add to the list of options to choose from. The origin of this addition is a result of Shepherd customers’ client satisfaction techniques.
Registering case closed in outlier situations
Everyone works hard to deliver good service but once in a while the proverbial happens and any service manager worth their salt will work even harder to smooth over any inconvenience their client has felt as a result. These compensatory actions may be such that a new service order needs to be created so that the technician can go and execute the necessary work.
Previously, it was when the sales order was created that the case order was logged as closed. That was it. No room for being creative and that is what Shephard has now addressed.
The issue for some users was when one such remedial service order was created, the remedial service was done, but the case could not be logged if the company used sales order billed or closed as the case closure criterion (given the whole point of the service was to be a goodwill gesture). In other words, that trigger for closing the case (billing or closing an invoice) could not occur.
Close manually at your convenience
So now, Shepherd has added different options that customers can choose from the outset that decide when a case is logged as closed, based on their internal processes and preferences. These options are sales order creation, as before, sales order billing, and sales order closed. A fourth and final option is to leave it “empty” which allows the case to remain open until the user decides it is closed and logs this with a click on their screen.
In situations where the circumstances required the sales order billing to be skipped (as per the example scenario above), yet that was set as the trigger for case closure, the trigger would become sales order closed by default.
In the same way that the default option defined as case closed is initially set up in the system configuration, the same can be said of another Shepherd refinement: the warranty template.
Warranty does not start at the same time for all companies
In most cases, companies will have warranty templates to choose from that would suit different types of warranty arrangements based on the level of service, the type of equipment covered, and so on. Such templates prefill the values for any warranty work performed.
One aspect that can differ from company to company is the point at which the warranty will start. Is it when an asset is paid for? Invoiced? How about shipped? This is what Shepherd allows users to define by having different options for that initiation of warranty cover: invoice date, transaction date, or the new, latest, “ship date”.
This makes the creation of internal warranty templates that bit more flexible as to when a warranty comes into effect, since any ambiguity here could lead to awkward situations where company commitments and client expectations are mismatched. If that is a situation you’d like to avoid, talk to a Shepherd sales manager today to learn more about these and other aspects of the NetSuite-native Shepherd solution.
